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Anonymous Posted 10 years ago
Grammar
conjunction vs. disjunction
Hi everyone I have a quick question: Do you think the sentence (1) has the following two interpretations?
(1) You can drink coffee and tea.
a. You can drink both coffee and tea (so please take both).
b. You can drink coffee and tea, but only one of them.
I suppose that if "and" is replaced by "or", then both interpretations are available. But I am wondering whether "and" is ambiguous as well (even if one interpretation may be more prominent than the other).
Thank you!
(1) You can drink coffee and tea.
a. You can drink both coffee and tea (so please take both).
b. You can drink coffee and tea, but only one of them.
I suppose that if "and" is replaced by "or", then both interpretations are available. But I am wondering whether "and" is ambiguous as well (even if one interpretation may be more prominent than the other).
Thank you!
Top answer
Anonymous Do you think the sentence (1) has the following two interpretations? No. b.
- Anonymous Do you think the sentence (1) has the following two interpretations?
- No.
- b.
- is not a correct interpretation.
- It says you can drink coffee AND you can drink tea, so there is no implication that you cannot drink both if you wish.
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1 Answers
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AnonymousDo you think the sentence (1) has the following two interpretations?No. b. is not a correct interpretation. It says you can drink coffee AND you can drink tea, so there is no implication that you cannot drink both if you wish.
CJ
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